Greater New Orleans

About four feet of brackish storm water flooded the St. Bernard Parish courthouse for days during Hurricane Katrina, with the floodwater's sludge remaining for several weeks. Mold spores took hold and bloomed. While initial FEMA estimates - based on the damage that was visible at the time - placed the courthouse remediation at $3 million, further review of the extent of mold and asbestos, and the necessary historic repairs, quickly caused costs to skyrocket. The courthouse ended up costing about $15 million and took years longer to be completed than anticipated. It finally opened in April 2013, with FEMA paying for all but $800,000, which was the parish share of the renovation bill.
(NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive)

A dispute over fees for a Mandeville storage facility will cause delays in getting vital St. Bernard Parish court records needed for real estate transactions and other parish business, St. Bernard Clerk of Court Randy Nunez said.

But soon after that courthouse's opening in April 2013, FEMA stopped footing the bill for the records' storage. And now that has caught up with the parish clerk of court's office.

"I can't bring the files back because of the mold and I can't afford to pay the rent," Nunez said. "It's all FEMA. They should be paying it."

After NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune requested comment on Friday, FEMA released a statement saying that while the agency agreed to fund "temporary offsite storage of damaged records," that soon after the parish courthouse was completed all "FEMA-funded temporary facilities were demobilized" in June 2013.

"FEMA has provided funding, as requested by the Clerk of Court, for remediation and storage of records," FEMA stated on Friday. "A request for additional funding for remediation or storage has not been submitted."

The parish already owes The Windward Group, which has stored the records and has scanned them as needed, about $125,000 in back fees. And month after month that bill is rising.

And because of the mounting bill, The Windward Group on Monday stopped scanning and sending the records over to the parish clerk's office. Instead, Nunez or his employees must now go and scan the files themselves in Mandeville.

"We talked to Mr. Nunez, and said, look, we can't afford to retrieve them, but we won't cut off access to them and we'll teach your people to retrieve them," Bob Rathe, the owner of the Mandeville storage company, said on Friday. "I had two full-time managers doing the retrievals every day, and I can't afford that when I'm not getting paid, but we are not going to cut off access to the records."

Nunez said he likely would only be able to go and scan files once or twice a week and that his staff will keep a running list of requests that he will bring with him. He said he would do the task himself, as "my employees didn't sign up for that."

The process is arduous, Rathe and Nunez explained. They said that to retrieve files, a person must wear a respirator and a hazmat suit.

"It will make everything in the parish move a lot slower," Nunez said. "If someone now wants to buy some property, for bank to research the property it will need documents that I'll have to scan when I go out to Mandeville."